


Alone

by AlyKat



Category: Star Trek: Enterprise
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Character Study, Gen, i'm not even sorry, introspective look at Malcolm's friendship, no happy ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-10
Updated: 2017-05-10
Packaged: 2018-10-30 09:07:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10873614
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlyKat/pseuds/AlyKat
Summary: Malcolm reflects on his friendship with Trip Tucker. The man he came to call his best friend.The man whose best friend, Malcolm was not.





	Alone

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this cuz I'm currently full of angsty feels right now. And it always sucks when you consider someone your best friend, but they don't consider you theirs. This is a feeling I'm all too familiar with. Have been most of my life. Finally decided to project these feels on to the one person I figured could probably relate to that, and it just so happens to be Malcolm Reed. 
> 
> Plus, this was a nice way to challenge myself to write something less than 10k long. It's only 1k. I'm proud of myself. 
> 
> Disclaimer: The boys are not mine, no matter how much I wish they were. I'd probably take better care of them than their actual writers did, but that's besides the point.

Malcolm had never been much for having friends, not even when he was a child. He tried to befriend kids his age, but it wasn’t easy for him to warm up to people. He was small and scrawny growing up, which meant the other kids found more amusement in bullying him than trying to befriend him. Of course, it was hard to make friends when you were moving from one Royal Navy base to another, barely staying in one place long enough to learn your teacher’s name, let alone any student’s names. 

By the time he’d reached nine-years-old, Malcolm had stopped trying altogether. He hated watching his younger sister Madeline cry each time they moved and she had to leave her friends behind. Maddy never had an issue making friends. She was bright and bubbly and outgoing; everything Malcolm wasn’t. It broke his heart to see her cry, and try as he might, an awkward, quiet, bookish older brother was not a very acceptable replacement for friends. 

When he was finally sent away to school, there were people he’d occasionally spend time with, but no one he ever truly considered a friend. Training at Starfleet, his roommate had attempted to befriend him, which Malcolm could appreciate, but by then didn’t see a point in anyone even bothering. He was far too old for true friendships, and it distracted him from his studies and training. When he was finally assigned a posting for the first time, a young, bright-eyed ensign had latched onto him like a lost puppy, following him everywhere he went and even going so far as to eating meals with him. Travis Mayweather could very well have been the first person Malcolm had ever even considered  _ possibly _ calling a friend. Not a best friend, not even just a good friend, just...a friend. 

Then it happened. How it happened, Malcolm didn’t know, but it did. Commander Charles “Trip” Tucker III barrelled into his life with all the grace and finesse of a kamikaze dive bomber. Trip was so much his opposite that Malcolm often found himself torn between wanting to wrap his hands around the Southern commander’s neck and put an end to his ridiculous cheerfulness and slaughtering of Malcolm’s rank, or cling to him and never let go. They fought like cats and dogs, then two seconds later Trip would have him laughing about something. Malcolm even took to mimicking Trip’s accent on occasion just to make Trip laugh.

It was such a strange, wonderful feeling, the realization that Trip had wormed his way passed all Malcolm’s defenses and barriers, and had gotten him to open up about things (especially after their shared near death experience on shuttlepod one) where others had failed. What was even more surprising, though, was the fact Malcolm actually admitted to himself that Trip was his friend. More than that; Trip was his  _ best _ friend. His first and only true best friend. 

Which was why it hurt so bad when he realized he wasn’t Trip’s best friend. A good friend, sure. A close friend even. Just not his best friend. Trip had the ability to be everyone’s friend, and everyone wanted to be his friend. He just had that kind of personality and draw to him. So what right did Malcolm have to be hurt when Trip would go sit with Phlox and Cutler during movie nights instead of him? Or to feel slighted when he’d get a grin and a wave in the mess hall as Trip sauntered through on his way to the captain’s mess? Malcolm would often seek out Trip’s companionship, but it was usually only when Trip wanted to get into trouble that he sought out Malcolm for help. They’d even been dubbed the Disaster Twins because of this, much to Malcolm’s dismay. 

No, Malcolm wasn’t Trip’s best friend by any means. Captain Archer held that right. Captain Archer was the one Trip confided in, ate with, spent free time with, drinking beers and watching water polo of all things! 

Malcolm often wondered why he bothered trying to gain more of Trip’s attention, to be worthy enough to call himself Trip’s best friend. Nothing he tried made much of a difference. Not even being the one to travel down to the ravaged and destroyed state of Florida with Trip had been enough. To be the one to stand at his side while Trip tried to wrap his head around the fact some unknown alien species had burned a chasm into his home state, into the very city Trip’s younger sister lived in, stealing said sister away from him far too soon. Malcolm had tried to be a shoulder for Trip to lean on, cry on. Instead, he was shoved away, scorned and tossed aside like he didn’t matter. Treated like a bothersome child dogging after an angry older brother, desperate to cheer him up. 

Trip didn’t seek Malcolm out for comfort when he needed it; he went to T’Pol for that. He didn’t sit and drink with Malcolm to talk about anything important that had been weighing heavily on his mind; Jonathan Archer was the man he turned to then. 

In the end, when all was said and done, Trip didn’t turn to Malcolm for company at all. They spent time together strictly in a professional manner. Even that was tense, though. The only small comfort Malcolm had was knowing that Trip had been the one to convince Captain Archer that Malcolm was not a traitor, not a spy. It had been Trip, ultimately, that got Malcolm out of the brig and back onto the bridge and into the armory where he belonged. 

It was Trip’s best friend though, Captain Archer, who delivered Trip’s eulogy when the time came. Malcolm could only sit and mourn for the loss of his one and only true friend. 

His one and only  _ best _ friend. 

Charles “Trip” Tucker, who gave his life to save the life of his best friend, Jonathan Archer. 


End file.
